It figures. My first WPBT final table, and it’s a tournament with no payout. Not a problem, I feel great about the money we raised for a good cause. As I said below, see 2idiots.com for information on what this was all about.

I feel like I made only one real mistake in the tournament, and it worked out for me and I doubled up. I’ll get to that.

Not much interesting happened for me until near the end of the second level. I had won and lost a few small pots, and had 1355 in chips from the initial starting stack of 1500. There was an early position raise from Decker, and call by Derek, and I called on the button with 77. The flop was 567, Decker led out, and Derek called, so I pushed to bet out the straight or flush draw. Decker called with JJ, and I took down a nice pot. Derek said he folded his would be straight, with the 8 on the turn. Decker was crippled with only 225 in chips remaining. He doubled up the next hand when he got all in on a K44 flop with KJ vs A4. He hit running kings for quads. He’d go on to finish second.

In level 3, I raised with 99 from middle position, and called a small reraise from Spaceman. The flop was 67T, and we both checked. I put him on two big cards, and figured my nines were good. I called his reasonably sized bets on the turn and river, which were both blanks, and he showed AQ. In level 4, it folded to Spaceman on the button, and he raised to 400. I called with 66 from the big blind. The flop was AJ6, and I checked. He went all in, and I called. He had AK, and didn’t improve, and I crippled him by catching the antichrist against him. Strange. I won a huge pot against the guy who knew Charlie best by doing what his blog is named after.

In level 6, I won a nice pot when I made two pair with KT. Then I went card dead for a while, and was getting impatient. I made what I think is my only mistake of the tournament, in level 8. I had AJs in middle position and raised it up. There was a small reraise from the button, and it came back around to me. I knew I was beat, and he had a pair or had me outkicked. The problem was I was getting more than 4:1 on the call, so even outkicked, I had the right odds. That led to problem number two, which was if I called, I was pot committed. Looking back, I should have done a stop and go – called, and then pushed no matter what the flop. That would have been the right play, I think. Instead, I pushed, he called with AQ, and I sucked out with a jack on the flop and doubled up. As I said before, I really think this was my only misplay, and that includes the hand I busted on, which is coming up soon.

I got moved to another table right after that hand, and seated directly to my left was Wil. It also happens that I got K4o, the hand that knocked him out of two Vegas tournaments recently, that hand. I was two off the button, and raised two limpers (the eventual winner, SarahBellum, and Halverson) to 2000 (200/400 blinds). Everyone folded, though it took a long time for Chris to do so. I typed, “wil, this one’s for you” in the chat, and showed my hand. He responded, “man, I am so glad I folded!”

I made a few steals here and there, and busted a shortstack with AK, but pretty much folded my way to the final table. The very first hand of the final table, the shortstack gets all in against me when I have aces. They hold up and we’re down to 8. A few hands later, I had J9s in the big blind, and called a minimum raise from the button. The small blind called as well. The flop was KK5 with two of my suit, and I pushed in, for about twice the pot size. I don’t think this was a terrible play, and more often than not I think it’ll win it right there. If not, I’d usually have some outs for my flush. Of course, this time I was semibluffing into a made full house, as the small blind had 55. Oops. I had runner-runner straight flush outs, but missed, and I was done in 8th place.

All in all, it was a great tournament, for a great cause. Congrats to everyone who played, and SarahBellum for winning!

(Note: all hand details here come from PokerTracker. My memory is not that good.)

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